A fast morphing-based interpolation for medical images: Application to conformal radiotherapy

Abstract

A method is presented for fast interpolation between medical images. The method is intended for both slice and projective interpolation. It allows offline interpolation between neighboring slices in tomographic data. Spatial correspondence between adjacent images is established using a block matching algorithm. Interpolation of image intensities is then carried out by morphing between the images. The morphing-based method is compared to standard linear interpolation, block-matching-based interpolation and registrationbased interpolation in 3D tomographic data sets. Results show that the proposed method scored similar performance in comparison to registration-based interpolation, and significantly outperforms both linear and block-matching-based interpolation. This method is applied in the context of conformal radiotherapy for online projective interpolation between Digitally Reconstructed Radiographs (DRRs).